


Singing in Blood like Fire

by AliyaRegatti



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), UnDeadwood (Web Series)
Genre: Established Relationship, First Kiss, Found Family Deadwood 5, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Post-Canon, UnDeadwood Mini-series (Critical Role), Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21911755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliyaRegatti/pseuds/AliyaRegatti
Summary: Another day, another gun fight, thought Clayton as several bullets whizzed past his head. I should be getting used to this.History catches up with Amos Kingsley, but not in the way he thought it would.
Relationships: Reverend Matthew Mason/Clayton Sharpe, background Miriam Landisman/Arabella Whitlock
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51
Collections: Yee-Hawligays Undeadwood Fic Exchange





	Singing in Blood like Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elanoides](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elanoides/gifts).



> Thank you to Brian W. Foster, the cast of UnDeadwood and the UnDeadwood Discord server for the inspiration and push to write.
> 
> This is a gift for elanoides (swallowtailed) for the UnDeadwood Discord server Holiday Fic Exchange!
> 
> A request for established relationship with quiet moments, hurt/comfort, and domesticity inspired something I'm pretty proud of.

_Another day, another gun fight_ , thought Clayton as several bullets whizzed past his head. _I should be getting used to this._

He’d stationed himself on the far side of the Gem Saloon, across the thoroughfare from a duster-clad Reverend Mason, who was closer than necessary for the range of his rifle, but damned if it wasn’t good to see him there and safe as one could be while being shot at.

The scent of spent gunpowder in the air focused Clayton’s mind like nothing else could. That trait was useful in such a fight, but so was knowing the locations of his allies as well as his enemies.

From further behind him, shouts of Miss Arabella and Mister Fogg calling upon the magical ability thrumming in all their ears sent thankfulness rushing through him, as reluctant as he’d been to call upon that ability himself. What they’re facing down might not be destroyed by bullets alone and that power on their side may be the saving grace they all need in this godless, lawless town.

Miss Miriam slid down the wall behind him, using the cover of the building to recover from drawing fire and pulling the zombies into the open.

“Take them down, Mister Sharpe. This seems to be the last of the lot.” Miriam heaved out a few more breaths of moist night air and pulled her Derringer from a pocket hidden under ruffles.

As Clayton spun around to take a shot with each of his trusty weapons, the moonlight illuminated the zombies close enough for him to get a look at a face and the sight stopped him cold. Fear chilled him to the soul, momentarily severing his connection to the present moment.

He was back to being a sixteen-year-old with less cares than sense. He was back to being a part of the wrong sort of crowd who pulled knives on those they disagreed with. He was back to being Amos Kingsley, fucking accused of a fucking murder he didn’t fucking commit, and fucking watching all those mother fuckers turn their backs and forcing him to run the fuck to the west. As Clayton Sharpe returned to himself, a zombie who had once been a man and brother-in-bond, shot.

He heard Miriam’s scream before the pain hit. His heart wrenched with the sound of her fear. The Reverend’s eyes caught his as he was falling… Oh, he was falling, wasn’t he? Matthew’s eyes… so full of pain… Maybe if he closed his eyes… the pain… would fade…

The buzz of power beyond himself thrummed through him. The Dealer’s appearance should be eminent, but the hands did not appear. No cards were set in front of him. No game was offered in exchange for his life as it slipped away. Perhaps the Dealer had no use for a gunslinger who couldn’t survive a wound, who scorned the offer of power in favor of guns that would barely damage the otherworldly beings who harried the town of Deadwood.

* * *

The sound of sizzling woke Clayton.

Butter on a skillet. As if the whole night had passed and it were morning.

His eyes opened to Miriam’s burgundy silhouette at the stovetop in Aloysius’s home at the edge of camp. The duster, the one he’d given the Reverend on the day they met to keep his priestly collar clean, lay over him as a blanket.

As he lay, Arabella came from around a corner and slid into place behind Miriam. The taller redhead leaned over to kiss Miriam’s cheek. This wasn’t too unusual an occurrence among just the five of them. Within the small group, the Whitlock name was rarely spoken and the man to whom the name belonged was of no relation to the Arabella with whom their time was spent… who’s heart belonged to the singular Miss Miriam Landisman, whose husband “sent her on ahead.”

As butter continued to sizzle, eggs were cracked and scrambled in the pan. Arabella continued to hold Miriam as she cooked, taking the light-hearted scolding for the distraction with all the poise and honor of the Livingston name she was born under.

Mouth dry as the desert, still tasting of iron from blood, Clayton could no longer resist the coughing fit threatening him, and he forced himself to sit up and endure it with less-than his usual stoic pride.

Bootsteps came alongside him as his eyes watered and a cool glass with water pressed into his hands. Clayton swung his long legs over the side of the kitchen cot and took in the water with a gratitude usually reserved for those who offer an oasis in the desert.

Upon downing the glass and opening clear eyes, the scarred face of Reverend Mason filled his vision. The deep brown eyes of the Reverend were searching, reassuring, and strangely wide- as though somewhat disbelieving.

“Mister Sharpe, are you with us?” Aloysius’s voice came from down the hallway. Clayton’s eyes stayed locked with Matthew’s as he answered.

“Apparently.”

“I told you, Aly, he’s breathing, and he didn’t get caught in any magical thrall. He’ll be with us.” Arabella smiled as Clayton managed to focus on her rather than the Reverend in front of him.

“Didn’t think I was gonna be keeping on breathing after that, to tell you truth,” Clayton managed.

An unhidden side-eye from Miriam at the Reverend in front of him, coupled with the Reverend’s quick work of making sure his own eyes were pointed elsewhere from Clayton’s clued him in.

His breathing quickened at the thought. The Reverend called upon the power of the Dealer with less abandon than Aloysius and Arabella, but more than himself or Miriam ever did. The idea of the pure soul within the Reverend being put on the line for his own tarnished and stained life, a life that could never be considered godly, was blasphemy if he’d ever seen it.

As if he’d been gutted by the thought from the hollowness it gave his stomach, he whispered, “Did you play for my life?”

Skirts rustled as the ladies returned to add bacon to the coming meal on the stovetop. Aloysius retreated like the fog he’d called himself after. Though their friends were around them in the house, they’d given Mason and himself as much privacy as could be given without Clayton having to move.

It occurred to Clayton that he ought to be in pain. He’d let the duster fall to the side in his coughing fit and he could see the deep crimson stain surrounding a hole in his shirtfront, perhaps an inch left of his heart. The skin beneath, however, tawny from sun-soaked work to build the house in which they now were, was as unblemished as if the shot had never occurred at all.

The Reverend, sitting on his haunches in front of him, still was failing to look him in the eye. The gloved hands of the preacher twitched, as if to begin counting beads on his rosery, but the man did not produce it from his pocket. His collar was starch white against his black robes, excepting a small spot of dark rust color where it would have rested against Clayton’s chest to hear his lungs take air or his heart beat.

“Mason… did you?” Clayton’s voice was breaking with the strain of the thought.

“I had to, Clay. You’re the one part of me I’m not willing to lose.”

“That’s a mighty fine way to lose the soul of you.”

“If my soul is forfeit to God for the sake of you, I would still consider it a well-placed bet.”

Clayton forced a humorless chuckle. “God don’t play cards, I told ya.” He shut his eyes against the memory of those first few days as a group of untrusting people forced together by Swearengin’s interference. “Whatever the Dealer is is no divinity.”

Mason’s expression was soft, though he still looked to the floor. “Perhaps not, but I trust that the Lord has my soul well in-hand even still.”

With a sigh, Clayton reached out a hand to the Reverend’s shoulder. “Matty… I…” As he fumbled for words, their eyes met and the full force of the feelings the Reverend had for him caused the statement to die in his throat. He swallowed and tried to force his eyes shut against the confirmation of what he already knew, and had known for weeks, but could barely accept.

With tight-shut eyes and hands clasped to his own side, Clayton began again. “I… I failed all of you because of my past. If I wasn’t who I was so long ago, that would have been an easy shot taken and… the zombie… would have never got me.”

Back when I was Amos Kingsley, fucking ignorant of the way of the world, I had a group I ran with. Bunch of cocksuckers. I wasn’t the youngest of the bunch but I was old enough to have a warrant put out on me for a murder I didn’t do. Old enough to know I had to run or be killed in jail.”

So, I ran. And I ain’t never stopped running ‘til Deadwood. Thought a lawless town would get me far enough from the law. We both know that wasn’t the case. Mister Fogg found me here and heard me out and I will always be grateful for his listening that day.”

Clayton stopped and buried his face in his hands to stop the tears from coming. No judgement would come from his company here, he knew, but he wanted to say his piece and it wouldn’t come out right through blubbering.

“I never thought it’d catch up to me a different way. Those fucking zombies… They’d been part of the crowd I’d run with. Part of the crowd that set me up for that fall. I ain’t never expected to see those cocksuckers ever again after what they’d done to me. An… I wasn’t prepared to deal with that. I wasn’t prepared to be Amos Kingsley, a kid with a knife he could barely use again in the middle of a gunfight.”

The tears were flowing quiet but free on his cheeks. In just his linen shirt, he didn’t have a handkerchief handy, but it still startled him when Mason’s thumb brushed away the wetness from his face.

The large hands of the Reverend caressed his cheeks as though he were precious and fragile. This breakdown was the first Mason had seen of him at his weakest. Stoicism had served Sharpe well for many years and those walls he’d placed were sturdy.

He’d never expected his past to come for him here. He’d never expected anyone to care enough to step in the way of it either.

As the Reverend leaned forward, letting his forehead rest against Clayton’s own, that feeling he could barely acknowledge in himself blossomed through him once again, almost as painful to repress as the fear of saying it that came alongside.

“Clayton?” the Reverend whispered.

“Yes?” he answered.

“I would mightily like to kiss you right now.”

“Wouldn’t that go against some vow of yours?”

“My vows don’t say nothing about other people choosing to kiss me.”

With gentleness borne of repressed years of yearning for the chance at something more than a distant acknowledgement of other people, Clayton leaned in to press a soft kiss to Matthew’s lips.

They had toed this line so many times before- the goodnight handshake far past when it made sense to leave each other’s rooms, the arm-over-shoulder as any brotherhood borne of trials passed together would warrant, the one hand atop the other’s, ungloved, as they sat upon a bed just discussing the sanity of the town at large… all had happened so many times. They bandaged each other following fights. They oriented their fighting around each other and worked in tandem, standing back to back when needed to ground their senses in the midst of battle.

They knew what they were to each other- more than friends, and they’d said as much, many times over. They’d never said the word, appropriate as it was, because there are things a priest can’t do, can’t be. So, they made what motions they could towards becoming. They stood close enough in public, and in privacy, they danced together to music they hummed beneath their breath. They sought out every possible moment of contact they could, and here it had come to a head. The type of touch they’d avoided so long, even as they knew each other in so many other ways- they shared it, a simple kiss.

They were allowed to cherish the moment with rough, chapped lips, calloused hands and scruff against beard setting fireworks set off behind their eyes. Nothing stopped them from feeling emotion spark in them like the magic that sings beneath their skin, like the crispness of the first winter morning of the season refreshing their souls.

Moving apart was a slow process, made slower by the fact that neither wanted to let the moment become a part of their past.

The hunger for more was lit beneath Clayton’s skin. The Reverend’s wide eyes sparkled with the knowledge of what kissing him felt like, and that just stoked the hunger higher.

Miriam cleared her throat from by the kitchen table. “We’ve got breakfast. I’m sure you must be hungry Mister Sharpe, and I’m sure you want to know all about how the rest of that fight went while you were indisposed.” From her grin, she knew what she was interrupting.

“Miss Miriam, I would indeed.” Pulling on the duster from beside him, as his usual layers were nowhere to be seen, Clayton stood and made his way to the table.

The fight had been a short one after he had gone down. The Derringers of Miss Arabella and Miss Miriam were somehow the most useful in the fight, propelled to that position perhaps by the spell Mister Fogg had thrown into the thoroughfare intensifying the bullets passing through it from their direction and doing the opposite to the bullets coming from the other way.

Reassured by the knowledge that the zombies had then been burned by Fogg and the ladies, Clayton began to relax and eat rather than push food around his plate.

“The Reverend didn’t leave your side once the fight stopped.” Aly was leaning away from the table at this point, relaxed into the retelling. “Rarely seen a man so motivated over anything.”

“Well, Aly, motivation over life and death is pretty strong,” Miriam said.

“Of course, Miss Miriam, just saying that I ain’t seen too many men move faster than lightning to the side of someone just to lay on hands.”

“Oh, you do exaggerate Mister Fogg. Why, I’d swear for certain that the good Reverend here was only faster than thought,” Arabella teased.

Clayton watched Mason’s cheeks redden as he attempted to hide the blush behind taking a drink. The heated desire beneath Clayton’s skin burned up again. He returned to the meal to cool his temptation.

“In any case,” Aloysius said, “We’ve done what we needed to to protect Deadwood yet again. And that means Swearengen will have gold for us if he means us to continue this work.”

“Just how long of a visit to his saloon are you planning, Mister Fogg?” asked Arabella. “I’m needed at the church today by the Reverend and you know how much effort keeping up appearances takes.”

The group smiled at each other as the lighthearted ribbings continued throughout clearing breakfast. While the house officially belonged to Aloysius Fogg, it’s been practically home to the lot of them for the time it’s been enclosed. Deadwood’s big enough that not every person knows every face, but when you’ve been in town for more than a few months, and you keep stopping zombies in the street, you become a bit known. The house has been a retreat from public appearances of all sorts, and with the commonality of retreating here among them, routine had also sprung.

Clayton redressed into his usual attire as the bustle of activity prepared the group to leave. At the doorside hooks, the group split into their usual towngoing divisions: Aloysius escorting Miriam, Matthew escorting Arabella, and Clayton taking up the rear or point to watch for any funny business. Today, however, if Clayton Sharpe fell into step beside the Reverend Mason and Miss Whitlock on their way over to the Gem Saloon, nothing was said about it by the others. If it garnered a whisper or two by Deadwood citizens, none of those whispers would make it farther than a word or two before Clayton’s sharp eyes would find and silence the speaker.

Aloysius and Miriam entered The Gem and Johnny’s greeting rang out to the street as they approached. Clayton’s glance under his hat at Arabella was enough warning for her, and she excused herself from the escort at the door, whispering to the Reverend a moment before disappearing inside.

Clayton’s heartbeat seemed like it was choking him as he stepped into the shadows of the alley alongside The Gem. He didn’t look back to see if Matthew had followed him. He didn’t need to.

As Mason went to place a hand on his shoulder, Clayton Sharpe took initiative for once. With some momentum, the Reverend’s back met the wall of The Gem Saloon and Clayton’s lips met his.

The place wasn’t private enough for anything more than the barest moment of a kiss- one that could look to outsiders as if The Coffin was having unpleasant words with the Reverend. But the moment of lips on lips sang in Clayton’s blood like fire.

As he pulled back to see the stunned face of Matthew, breathing as hard as he was, he whispered, “We have to talk about this. But later. Right now, let’s get paid.” Clayton turned to walk into The Gem, catching the Reverend straightening his jacket and gently brushing his fingers over his lips from the corner of his eye. Clayton couldn’t help a private smile.

They had said they were lovers in all but the word. This day that would change- vows would be broken and spoken in a measure a hundredfold greater. Blasphemous worship would fill the church of Deadwood. And two men would find their truth in each other burning stronger than any magic under their skin.


End file.
